 Hello there. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today whether you are here on site with us or virtually we are excited to offer our first Friday forum series and this month we have our two candidates running for mayor of the city of Sheboygan incumbent mayor Mike van der steen and contender alderman ryan sorenson so first let me say thank you to our sponsor prevaya health without their continued support we could not make these programs happen questions for this event were sent in from our governmental affairs committee members as well as community members in general thank you for sending in your questions i will tell you we received a lot of questions that an hour is just not enough time for us to get through so if we do not ask it i apologize we will do our very best we hope that these educational opportunities to learn about local candidates will help you make the most informed decisions as you get out and vote on april 6 moderating for us today is our governmental affairs committee chair and attorney josh mckinley josh thank you for your time and the floor is yours thank you very much and i'd like to thank both of our candidates for coming out today and joining us we received quite a few questions from people along the lines of what do you think is the situation with diversity equality and inclusion or de i here in the city of sheboygan both the city as a whole as well as within the city government i'd like to give each of you a chance to talk about that issue and whether you think there's anything that the city should be doing to improve diversity within the city and so you each will have two minutes to respond to the question and i would like to ask uh mayor van der steen to get us started thank you very much josh and first of all thank you to the chamber for organizing this opportunity pardon me your mic's gotta turn i think i'm gonna move down here okay well let's start that again thank you very much to the chamber for hosting this event it's great to be here and we appreciate everyone's interest in in in city government and the election coming up to talk about diversity a little bit and inclusion sheboygan is it becoming a more diverse community we're already a majority minority community if you look at our school district and in the population in the school district and that population is just gonna become more a part of our community so we're heading in that direction so this is a very important issue the i made a trip over to appleton to investigate their diversity campaign called respect and dignity and this really has worked out well for the city of appleton because you know when you talk about trying to change the minds of people in our community you really need something that includes them in the picture rather than something that they just wanted change and those people need to be treated with dignity and respect as well so i'm really looking at something that's more inclusive i also know that there's a local committee that's been meeting and i think we have to take a look at the things that that local committee is coming up the city itself needs to make some changes and we're going to be dealing with that this fall when we put together our next strategic plan the strategic plan for the city of sheboygan uh we're just finishing up in our first five-year plan and so we're going to have a real involved process that we go through at that time and i think we'll have a different look on this issue because it really wasn't included in the last strategic plan and so we're going to be i think looking for a lot more citizen input and hopefully we'll come up with some real goals that we want to achieve both for the city and for our community as a whole thank you all right thanks again for the chamber of commerce for hosting this forum today diversity inclusion inequity these are these are some key phrases that that mean a lot to everybody across the city and this has been a big issue that i've been a part of for for quite some time now i've been a founding member of the sheboygan county diversity equity and inclusion and belonging initiative and this group is primarily focused with identifying a lot of the gaps that we're having in this community in terms of how we're addressing diversity inequity and inclusion i think that there's a lot the city government can do i think especially in the mayor's office a key a key responsibility that the mayor has is ensuring that we are making appointments that reflect the true diversity and different talents across all boards and commissions in the committee of the city government and elevating everybody's different perspectives and also from a business standpoint this has been a huge issue that i've been talking with business owners about as well in the difficulty it is to recruit and maintain and attract diverse talent from across our area one business owner that i was talking to is was telling me about the difficulty that they're having with recruiting and maintaining their diverse staff some of their highest staff paid staff members are paid they come from diverse backgrounds but they don't feel welcome they don't feel included in this community and they choose to commute more than 45 minutes every single day they choose to raise their families elsewhere they choose to spend their money elsewhere while we're paying them and they have their job foundation here so i think when we're looking at diversity inequity we need to look at many different issues whether it's housing whether it's health care whether it's jobs and recruitment and attracting folks here as well and ensuring that their voices are heard and reflective in the city government thank you now i'd like to apologize i neglected to give you an opportunity to give an opening statement i was too anxious to start asking questions from the audience so um i would like to give mr sorenson an opportunity first to give a three-minute opening statement about what's motivating you to to run for mayor yes awesome well thank you everybody for having us today um and thanks uh didger martinez in the chamber of commerce for having this forum today i think it's it's important to democracy that we hear our thoughts and share our ideas for everybody um but for those that don't know me my name is ryan sorenson um and i'm running for mayor my hometown my shabuigan roots run deep i was born and raised right here uh graduated from south high school uh worked my way through the shabuigan area school district and graduated from uw-mawaki we all know that shabuigan is a wonderful city we have so many great businesses and organizations that truly value our community and we have great people just salt of the earth that truly care about their friends families and neighbors i'm running for mayor because growing up my parents taught me to never sit on the sidelines and complain but to instead get in the game and make a difference and that's what i've done my entire life a few years ago i ran for city council and beat a 10-year incumbent and i also like i said before i'm currently serving as the city council president additionally i'm chairman of the public safety committee chair of the transit commission vice chair of the public works committee as well as a member of the capital improvements commission i think that all these different opportunities have shown you know just how great the city is but it also really identifies a lot of our different challenges and i think our biggest challenge that we need to address is shabuigan is facing a tale of two city situation here over the last decade this shabuigan community um had had had had over one billion dollars of investment and this is wonderful news however during the same time period students in the shabuigan area school district on free and reduced lunch has gone up by double digits one third of our residents still struggle to pay their utility bills and one in three children go to bed hungry every single night we need a new approach and serve in terms of how we're serving and helping our residents and i think with a new fresh approach with city leadership um i think we can really tackle and make a big difference in our community there's a lot of other issues that we need to address as well whether it's affordable housing fixing our roads and ensuring that we can fully recover from this covid pandemic we're not out of the woods just yet but i know if we work together we can get a lot of work done here so like i said before my name's ryan and i'm excited for this this forum and sharing my ideas and talking about the city that i love so much so thanks everyone for coming out today well thank you for that question and an opportunity to respond you know the the job of mayor is something that really requires a lot of experience and in the past i've had the opportunity to get involved in our community through organizations like the shabuigan jc's and rotary i participated in many community projects through those organizations and um i've also served on on many citizen roles in our community on boards like big brothers and big sisters ymca united way the city planning commission capital improvements commission the board of park and forestry the shabuigan development corporation and all of these experiences give me a great wealth of knowledge and networking so that we can really move our city ahead one of the things that i did when i was young is i i ran for alder person back in 1973 and i served for two terms and decided to run for mayor and i wasn't elected that time but what i decided to do then is is not just you know take a leave of absence but to get involved in shabuigan county and i became a supervisor for 15 years and then serving as county board chairman for four years and that was the best mayor and training program that i could have had because it allowed me to understand how another unit of government works is and i could see more opportunities for our city and our county to work together as county board chairman i set up meetings with mayor prez and later mayor ryan so we met on a on a regular basis twice a month to talk about the things that our communities had as far as needs and how we could both work together to solve those and those have led to many great projects our joint purchasing agent the in health clinic that we share and then our joint dispatch all these things came because we initiated more conversation and tried to work together you know the taxpayers are giving us their dollars and they want to know that they're spent the right way and if we're not working together then we're not spending those tax dollars efficiently i've also had some other roles now as mayor i'm on the urban alliance board the us conference of mayors water council i'm serving as chair of the great lakes and st lauren cities by national mayors organization and all those again give me a chance to find the best practices and other communities and try to bring things home for shabuagan i'm really working to continue to build a better shabuagan every day when i get up i'm looking for ways to solve the problems that we see in our communities so that we can move shabuagan ahead and be the best that we can be thank you one of the questions that was brought to us has to do with parking and downtown parking as customers of downtown businesses many people are frustrated with the need to pay for parking and as priors of downtown businesses sometimes there's a concern that it's difficult to stay in business when people have to pay to visit your shop and so i was wondering if you can speak to the value of charging for downtown parking whether it's worth what it costs and if mr vanderstein could start that'd be great thank you much for that question you know i went to a seminar on parking and the gist of it was if you if you don't charge for parking you should and if you don't you should go the other way you know it's one of those things that uh it doesn't have a really easy answer but i think the system that we have in shabuagan really works because we we have parking meters on a street we don't have workers parking in those spots they're open for the people that come to do business in downtown shabuagan and there is a very it's a very reasonable fee for parking and it's free after five o'clock in and weekends and then in our lots we do have reserve parking and that's uh i think 25 dollars for a month and if you want to go a little bit cheaper you can park on the streets you can get a hangar tag for your car and you can park on any of the side streets on seventh or ninth or any of the cross streets but not a street so it's a really good system i think it works there's always going to be somebody that's going to complain because uh they can't find what they want but uh you know we were looking at building a parking ramp years ago and if we would have done that we would have drastically increasing our prices for parking we've tried to do our best to keep everything reasonable and we have parking assessment districts where all the merchants downtown share the cost of plowing and maintaining those lots so it doesn't become a taxpayer uh uh expense and so it's a shared type of thing and i really think that what we have works and we should continue it all right i think uh parking is a huge issue and this is something that i've been talking with local business owners on eighth street i think our current system is a little outdated and old and i think that we need to get creative in terms of how we approach parking if you look at what other cities do um you can pay on an app you can pay on a debit card um a lot of folks sometimes don't carry change around anymore um and i've been one of those folks where i've wanted to you know go to the library or um go go grab a coffee at paradigm and if i couldn't find a quarter between my seats i'd have to park a few blocks away um and run up so um we need to get creative we need to work with um our local businesses in the eighth street and downtown area um and i think we can have partnerships with the bid district too in terms of how we can move forward and identifying um what works and where i think in some situations i'd be all for removing some meter parking and maybe doing 15 minute increment parking as well i think we can work on and we have done some um parking holidays where parking is free around uh the holidays so we can incentivize local shopping um so i think overall we have a pretty reasonable system but i think there's always room for improvement and that's what i've been hearing from folks um in the downtown area and a lot of several different business owners as well i mean thankfully we don't have uh to pay for parking like folks in mohawk in chicago do i mean you're paying 13 dollars an hour um but i think what we have is reasonable but i think we got to look at uh more we can step it up and make some improvements as well thank you um mr sorensen what is your vision for future economic development here in the city of shabuigan and particularly when it comes to business development awesome so so this is a key issue that i've been hearing a lot about and for my day job i work with a lot of small businesses all across um uh northeast wisconsin and i think business development this is this has been a really big challenge for a lot of municipalities um over the last year with the pandemic i think what we need to do as a city is really get creative and focus on what our strengths are and where our weaknesses are in terms of how we can develop and how we can strengthen our gaps um with economic development it's it's much more than just bringing businesses to the community but it's also ensuring that they can grow and thrive and that they have the resources for their employees in terms of when it comes to housing whether as a strong workforce whether it's access to the highways and utilities and i think shabuigan has all of those features so with economic development we need to sell shabuigan we need to sell the community we have some great strong-hearted people here and i think once we come back out of this pandemic fully i think our business park will be filling up i think we'll be able to expand and grow the fresh tech innovation district as well and i also think we need to focus on how we can support local businesses downtown and small businesses here as well so that they can grow so that they can be prosperous so that they can support their families as well so i don't know if i can fully answer this question in two minutes but i think we have a great team in the city have different partners all across the county whether it's the shabuigan county economic development corporation whether it's the chamber of commerce whether it's our local department staff or folks in the county but we also need to be strategic in terms of how we're educating the future i'm probably going to go down a rabbit hole here but in terms of we need to identify gaps in jobs that we're experiencing in the city and i think working with the shabuigan area school district with our technical colleges in the area that we can fill those gaps and once we fill those gaps we'll have those job opportunities so businesses can be successful for future generations mayor vanersen thank you very much our economic development was really going well before covid you know we had multi-million dollars invested in our community of our businesses expanding and when covid hit a lot of that dried up the city really felt that we needed to continue to allow more money to be spent to develop our new business park the south point enterprise campus and now when covid is ending hopefully we're going to see some more interest in that the city is reaching out to businesses mainly up in the green bay fox river valley area as well as we have a real estate agent that's working the Milwaukee market for us and we really hope that we can bring some new businesses in as well as support the businesses that are in shabuigan that want to expand but one of the real issues that's timing us and some of our additional economic development is our workforce the workforce is a huge issue because we we before covid we had two to three thousand jobs that were available all the time listed and businesses couldn't find enough workers and that's still the case today and we have to work harder to to have more housing available in our community and we also have to have find ways to bring more people in the economic development corporation has has tried to have job fairs and organize those for our businesses and to a certain extent they've been successful but we have to find ways to to get more places where where people can live we're doing a housing study right now and this will kind of give us a guideline as to how many more housing units are needed in the city of shabuigan in order to serve that workforce and the other thing you have to remember is that if these people are driving in from manatee walker fondle act the city isn't gaining the full value of their employment and the spending power that they have so this is a very important item that that needs to be worked on and we really have to concentrate on that workforce development thank you it's almost like you anticipated my next question because i was going to ask next about residential development and housing do you believe that there is a shortage of housing and for you mayor it sounds like there you believe there is and if there's a shortage of housing we've seen a lot of luxury condo type developments or luxury apartment type developments recently do you believe we need more of those do you believe we need more affordable housing or even rent controlled housing do we need more houses for single family residences what type of developments do we need going forward thank you for that question and that's very important the um the city of shabuigan right now is redoing a housing study the last time we did it about three and a half years ago it showed that we had a less than one percent vacancy rate in the city and we haven't seen any studies for our developers that showing that we've really eroded that and and gotten above one percent so a good community should have about a six to seven percent vacancy rate you know when you have somebody looking for a house they want to see several options and really for many types of housing people don't have any options there's just this one option and sometimes that's not what you want and then you go and you look elsewhere uh other than the city of shabuigan perhaps for that home the the real you know crux of things that we need to to concentrate on our our low income housing now in the last term we've added over 609 units when the oscar project is finished so we've really put a lot of effort in that area but it's my feeling that that it's not going to satisfy that demand and i'm looking to this study to really tell us how much more we need to build in order to serve the demand that's there for low income housing all these units and these other projects like the the badger state lofts and the oscar project and washington school you know these are our apartments that are priced roughly i think a one bedroom was about six hundred and forty dollars and a two bedroom was seven hundred and thirty dollars so they're really hitting the i think a sweet spot for many of the people in shabuigan with their incomes and the uh the other projects that we've had have been market rate apartments but you know we need those too because they've tracked it over 60 of the people that are coming to those are empty nesters and that's opening up other homes in the community for families to enjoy and enjoys their family in as well so housing is definitely a huge issue that we need to take a new fresh approach on the mayor mentioned that that there's a housing study another housing study that we're waiting for but you need to understand the methodology of how this study is being conducted folks that are spending more on housing that are impacted by affordable housing have not been included in the study more than 40 of our community is spending more than 30 of their income on their housing needs by hud's definition that is not affordable housing so we do have a housing challenge in this community fundamentally i think we need to diversify our housing stock in general we need to ensure that senior citizens can afford to stay in their homes we need to ensure that younger folks like myself can afford to plant their roots and grow here we also need more single family homes and not uh fancy luxury apartments that cost 1800 a month for one bedroom apartment um i think that there's a lot of different challenges as well that business leaders face i mean four years ago when i was elected to the city council we always talked about oh we have four thousand three thousand jobs available it seems like we can never make a dent in that well maybe we're taking the wrong approach in terms of how we're how we're solving this issue and i think housing is a huge component that we're that we're really missing the ball on i served as the chairman of the the shawing county housing coalition working with nonprofits across our community whether it's salvation army whether it's safe harbor whether it's the library we're seeing an increase in homelessness and social services as well the libraries is a social service center for folks salvation army their homeless residents they're increasing there's a waiting list for them as well so housing we need we need to look holistically on that end as well but we also need to look why it's more expensive to build here in shabuikin county we're missing the gap on a lot of trades we need to work with ltc we need we need more plumbers we need more electricians we need more carpenters as well so that we can um so that the um the cost of housing goes down as well so thank you thank you so as you're both expressing a concern about housing and a need to improve in that area what practical steps can the city take and particularly what steps could you take as mayor to effectuate real change of that area beyond doing studies and finding out more detail about the need but what can you really do to fix the problem um mr sorenson yeah i think there's a lot that that can be done um fundamentally we need we need to work with there there are groups out there right now that that are trying to tackle this and they're clamoring for for a voice their voice to be heard from the city government um there's a lot of nonprofits out there that identified gaps that see firsthand um who the the clients that they serve what they're experiencing i think having conversations bringing those folks to the table listening to them i think fundamentally we'll find out a lot of our issues in our community and we're missing the gap a lot of a lot of folks experience housing and securities in a wide variety of different ways homelessness in our community looks different than it does say in milwaukee or chicago or another big city a lot of what we're seeing here is a lot of families doubling up we see a lot of couch surfing we see a lot of folks possibly sleeping in their cars and parking lots i think these are huge issues that that we're not thinking about or plugging in in terms of how we're doing these housing studies um but fundamentally like i said before my last statement it's it's more expensive to build in the shabuigan area than it is in most other parts of the state and a huge part of that um is that is that there's such a lack of of folks in the trades um plumbers carpenters electricians we need to prioritize those job skills trainings we need to work with and have partnerships with the shabuigan area school district to show that students that these are job options that these are in need in our community making sure that we can strengthen those parts of our economy so that we can build more homes more single family homes more affordable housing for everybody um because that is a huge component in how we can be successful as a city very interesting thank you very much one of the ways that uh that we're gonna i think solve this problem is to work with developers that can bring more projects to our city you know the uh the city can't can't or rather they can support some of those with some of the funds that we have we've uh been giving most of our developers maybe a 10 or 15 percent developers incentive for some of the projects that we're bringing to the city and we want to continue to to prioritize the low income housing that um that we've seen here and uh and see that grow the the the people that are that are homeless right now you know we do a homeless count a couple of times a year and we've always come up with maybe 15 to 25 but when I talk to the red members of the school district they say that that number is is closer to 250 or 300 when you consider the people that you don't find out in a community at night when you do that count so that's a very important issue and it's something that we need to continue to look for solutions to uh the um there are are some helps with some of the agencies in town but for the most part they're putting people up in motels for short stays we really need to find something that's a little bit more permanent housing for these people that are are in between and having a lot of problems thank you um very quick question that came from the audience today um can each of you indicate whether you own a real estate uh here in sheboy the city such that you're a local taxpayer mayor van der scene um yes i've i'm on the third home that i've owned for a period of time my second home we uh we kept as the rental property so i have experience as a landlord i gave that up and now i'm just owning my one single family home and that's it thank you uh i'm different than mic unlike 40 of other city residents i'm a renter so i'm a younger guy and planning my roots and making sure that one day i can buy a home in this community thank you well i'm sure you knew this topic would come up but um i have a question about roads um roads have been very a pressing issue of concern for people in the city for a very long time and um i know that progress has been made in recent years and since uh i believe it was 2015 but many people are still dissatisfied with the progress so i just appreciate it if each of you can speak to um the progress that's being made what we could possibly do to do better if if you think that would be appropriate and how we could afford to do better if uh if you do think we should do more um uh mayor van der steen well first of all uh the the our streets are really been a priority for me during my first two terms and during that time we've been able to increase the average streets resurfaced by tripling from 1.4 average miles prior to when i came into office up to 4.2 miles now in the last seven years the the city has made a couple of moves to try to solve this problem one is to buy our own paving machine so that our own staff can go out there and apply asphalt to the surface of the streets that we have this has been a good strategy and about 45 percent of the streets resurfaced every year are done by our own crews but we have an impediment because uh we need somebody in many cases or most cases to mill that old asphalt off and the only service that does that right now is northeast asphalt we always get pushed around in their schedule and many times we don't get our crews out there to late in the season and they don't have as much time to do the work as they'd like so i think one of the things we want to look at is maybe partnering with the county or doing it on our own but by our own milling machine so that we have the equipment that we need so that we can do our roads when we when we want to get them done and that way we'll be able to have that crew in our in our machine that that applies the asphalt that is a paver do much more than we are currently right now but when you do streets it's not just the street that you're dealing with it's all the stuff that's underneath it so there's many things that have to go into a street resurfacing because you don't want to have to to dig it up to change some of the utilities that are underneath it right now we have a 14-year program that we're in we're the fifth year into that program it's a big job we have over 200 miles of streets and we need to continue to keep that program on track i'm surprised the roads question came up um um no the roads roads are the number one issue that i've always um uh have been hearing concerns from from citizens all across shabuigan i think right now the biggest challenge that we have is that we kind of have a throw everything against the wall sort of strategy whether it's with the wheel tax whether it's when we formally did um assessments as well um the the problem is is that we're not consistent in terms of how we're how we're tackling this approach i don't know if folks remember a few years back when we did the hot in place asphalt situation when we hired an out of town contractor that came in and put asphalt down the road and that project didn't work too well so we wasted time we wasted a whole construction season and we wasted taxpayer's dollar when we're hiring out of when we're hiring contractors to help us out with these programs we need to ensure that we're respecting taxpayers dollars that we're setting a high standard for these projects to get done i know rdp w staff does an amazing job um with the work that they do but they deserve a long-term strategic plan that incur that encompasses funding strategies and planning strategies as well and fundamentally we also need to hear from our citizens about what roads they feel like need more attention well whether it's the main arteries whether it's some of the side streets as well that have been far too neglected from citizens all across the city as well i think also the county i think they do an amazing job with with partnering with with the city in terms of the tools and supplies that they give us as well as well as they pay a good chunk of the revenue to sales tax so thanks to the folks at the county for that but we need to diversify our revenue streams as well i think that there are some creative ways in terms of how we can do funding we need to look at what other communities are doing the dot rated wisconsin's infrastructure at a d so we got a lot of room for improvement we got to think outside the box because what's what we're doing now is not working and that's what i've been hearing from a lot of different folks so then my natural follow-up is what are those creative outside the box funding solutions that that we should be looking into yeah i think i'm kind of just shooting a spitball in here going on the list other communities have gone out for a referendum other communities have access grants from the state dot from the federal dot there's also a lot of different creative partnerships that you can do with universities and colleges across uh of wisconsin that that have research funds and how you can better manage and retain um road repairs so i think that there are there are a lot of those opportunities we need to explore other communities have done it i think we're missing the mark on a few of them um but i think in terms that that's a good foundation of what we need to look at in terms of how much it's going to cost and how much it's going to benefit our community um any further comments on that um air fantasy well i really think that we we continued always look for better ideas but we have a city that was almost almost all concrete streets at one time and we find ourselves in a position where all those streets have outlived their useful life and now the strategy is to take the uh the streets that are um carrying the most traffic and try to replace them in concrete and use asphalt for the remaining streets to give them a new surface and um we also stepped up our maintenance of those streets so we're filling the cracks now on a regular schedule and we're trying to make that asphalt last for or the good 15 years that it should in the past we weren't doing things like that and so the maintenance of these streets is very important that in the three five and eight years down the road they're getting the attention that they need um as far as funding um we we appreciate the county's contribution of their sales tax we do have a wheel tax but the council has not wanted to go and fund that with an additional ten dollars that would would help out that would bring in probably another half a million dollars but that's only going to do about a half a mile of streets the biggest mistake i think the council made a few years ago is when they stopped assessing for streets that's something that people had done for years and all of a sudden we pulled the plug and that also uh uh lost funds that we could have used to add to our street resurfacing so i think the strategy that we have right now to uh employ our staff and and use the machinery ourselves and most of our street resurfacing is the best route to go and we'll continue to work that so that uh we accomplish our goals um regarding the idea of using assessments on the streets uh men uh banners to just indicate that you believe that we should reevaluate using those mr sorenson do you believe we should reimplement having assessments for street repairs at this point no and when this when this was brought up you know this this for road assessments you know it was this you know those folks that are on fixed incomes that when we repair their homes on the corner they would get slapped with a five thousand dollar bill i think in terms of if we're doing road assessments we need to look at what the actual benefit is of how many roads we're repairing and what the impact is on on the citizens we can't just nickel and dime and throw extra taxes and fees at citizens to fix the roads if we're going to fix the roads we need a long-term strategic plan and how we're going to be funding that and making sure that that's sustainable okay um do you have any uh response to that well i think that you know now that we've stopped it it's going to be very hard to put it back in place uh the um the problem is that was we need more funding the city uh for several years bonded for some of the streets resurfacing that we did to increase it we're now finding ourselves at a level where we have to really pull our ourselves back from from bonding for these street replacements and we have to fund them out of our operating budget so unless we you know increase our taxes or other things it's not going to happen you know ryan just talked about new revenues to come in and and mentioned all those things that we could tax people more we could bond we could have a referendum um so maybe the referendum is the way to go because that that way they would tell us that they want to spend more money but we need to increase our revenue streams in order to really solve this problem problem quicker than we are currently thank you shifting gears fairly dramatically what can we do as a city to better attract and retain millennials and generation z to our city mr van der steen if you could start us well i think you know it's really important that we make shabuigan inviting place for everybody we we want these people that grow up in shabuigan and stay here and the people that come here to work in and make a life for themselves to be real comfortable and and and really you know make shabuigan their home for the long term so i think some of the efforts that we've been been taking place with things like the leaven amp concerts the outdoor dining that we did during covet on a street we're we're starting to change i think the image of shabuigan and make us more attractive and more of a fun loving place for for them to to enjoy you know we have a great art center we've got a new art preserve that's opening up we have the wild center there's a lot of entertainment options and things to do in this community and i think we need to continue to work on building on those types of things and the other thing that we really need to do as well is is our diversity and inclusion this has to be a part of it so that all the people that come here no matter what background they're from or race they're from that they feel comfortable that this is their home and people accept them i think this is an awesome question and this is this is this issue is a big case study and why i believe we need some new leadership um in city government for the last 10 years this has been a question we've been asking ourselves as a community how do we recruit how do we track um and maintain young talent and the best solution that we could come up with was building luxury apartments now those apartments have been filling up with folks primarily that are empty nesters and over the age of 50 well that's great but then at the same time when we're trying to play catch-up and replicate what madison mowakia are doing by the time that we have these um built in shabuigan they missed their mark in the market i think that we need to have a new fresh approach in terms of what we're doing and making sure that we actually have affordable housing we're needing to listen to the the voices of millennials and what they need in this community when i first ran for council this was a huge issue in a huge conversation how do we track millennials how do we bring in gen zers now um in the community and nobody's really actually asked those questions are elevated those voices of folks um individuals when i'm mayor i'll definitely be pointing um some younger folks to boards and commissions so that their voices can be heard so that we know what they actually need and want i think in terms of work hard play hard we need to ensure that um we have sound uh job skill training programs here so that we can keep and retain um younger folks but we also need to ensure that we have companies um that that that we're recruiting that that support us in 2021 and moving forward whether that's tech jobs whether that's um entrepreneurship programs as well and different startup opportunities so so there's a lot of key foundational things there as well we also need to look at in terms of how we can grow and expand the entertainment we need to look at how we can grow and expand different opportunities um for for younger folks to plant and grow their roots here in the community something that covet has highlighted for many people is that with young families it can be challenging to find good activities for young children um in our community we have the children's museum we have the public library both of which were closed down for kids to be able to use in these last few months um is there anything that the city should be doing to better serve young families especially during our long winter season uh mr sorenson yes and this is this is another issue that i've been hearing from a lot of younger folks as well too especially when it's winter and what is it three weeks ago when it was negative you know 20 degrees and if you got three kids running around the house you know you're probably you know getting a little cabin fever for sure i think foundationally this is another huge example of where we need to listen to our citizens and see what they need what what they need it's we have some great entities like the library like the um the children's museum but those are only certain segments in our in our community we need to ensure grow and strengthen making sure that we're protecting our parks making sure that we keep um them to be pristine as they are we also need to look at different opportunities as well um the south south pier is a huge example we used to have triple play funds on there i was you know i was one of those kids running around and playing in there too you know so we've had these new experimental ideas but they've never fully stabilized so i think the city needs to identify what we need what we're missing but we also need to make sure that we're supporting those so that they can stay long stay along for the longevity in our community as well and finding those different opportunities and grow and expanding them one of the biggest issues i was pushing for i don't know folks remember um back in the 80s i wasn't there but uh a lot of our parks used to have um ice skating rinks in most of our parks you know and i i've been keep pushing this issue well why don't we do something as simple as an ice skating park sheboygan falls done it manatee walks done it milwaukee's done it a lot of other communities are on the state i think we're just missing some of these fundamental foundational ideas that we can bring back that offer more activities uh for younger families and for everybody never vanderstein um i think that you know during covid you know we we really closed everything down the library our parks and everything and so that created you know some issues for families because they didn't know where to go although they they did use some of our parks that weren't closed and we finally opened up our playgrounds which i think maybe we're too careful with but you know we weren't understanding covid at that time so um i think that there are a lot of activities in our community for sheboygan i certainly would be in favor of of seeing these expanded but many of the things that parents are looking for is you know these places where the kids can go and jump on trampolines and and things like that and play uh like the spaceport used to have these are things that need to be done by a private entity and while we can incentivize those people and and bring them into some of our programs that create jobs and and and help to set them up it's still going to take people that want to solve those needs in our community in order to to see these things built and come online so i think we have to continue to promote the activities that are here and um and and try to get more people meeting baby involved and and taking advantage of them but you know sheboygan is a great place to raise a family and and if you look a little bit harder you're going to find many of those opportunities in our community um mayor van der steen is there anything further that the city should be doing to facilitate businesses and especially smaller businesses in our community being able to function with the covid-19 pandemic do you think that it's mostly over or are there further steps that we should be taking well i think i've done a lot to help our businesses out during covid um the i put on a seminar forum to help them get through the winter we we brought them together with some representatives from the american restaurant association and then we also had a local discussion of things that we can do the city took advantage of some of the covid funds that we received from the cares act and we made loans available for businesses that were kind of falling through the cracks the businesses with five or fewer employees and we were frustrated and the businesses were because if they had taken advantage of the ppp program they couldn't participate well when they redid some of the restrictions on the cares act we finally were able to deal with more of those businesses and we recently reissued the call for them to apply for about two hundred thousand dollars that we still had available and just this week we sent out another notice to them that we had a consultant that was coming and we could set them up with a one-on-one discussion with this consultant for the restaurant industry to help them to come up with some new ideas whether it's doing a better job with delivery of food and things like that making their operation more compatible with the covid situation that we're dealing with the other thing that um you know the the businesses in our community I think have responded fairly well to that and you know we've put some programs out there and we just hope that they apply and and get the help that they need we want to see them survive small business Saturday was a great event the city hall really helped them to promote that and the businesses had had the great response from our citizens and maybe we just need to run small business Saturday more often to encourage people to shop local I think I think this is definitely a key issue we're not out of the woods just yet we're still in this pandemic businesses are still struggling and and looking at the city we still have over two hundred thousand dollars in terms of money that we got at the onset of this pandemic that we need to distribute to local businesses a lot of businesses that I've been talking to and engaging with are frustrated that there is that they have there has not been a clear coordination in terms of how we're supporting the businesses during this pandemic folks are still struggling these are the conversations I'm hearing whether it's the local bar that you know had to shut down whether it's the local coffee shop that had to cut its staff in half whether it's the manufacturing plant that had to shut down for two weeks because they had an outbreak folks are still struggling a lot of businesses are still in the red and they're just barely hanging on I think the city needs to make sure that we're allocating this money properly but we also need to need to make sure that we're reaching out I think you know we don't we don't we don't need to spend taxpayer dollars on a consultant on what to do we have great partnerships right here in the city like the bid like the chamber of commerce that can facilitate these these conversations so we can listen directly from the businesses and what they need and what can make them successful on the on start of the pandemic with help from the chamber we facilitated a lot of these conversations from restaurants and local taverns in the area asking them what do you need how can the city be effective during this time so as the chairman of the licensing and hearings committee we introduced the bill to reduce and get rid of red tape in the city ordinances that would allow for outdoor cafe seating and I don't know if folks remember um eighth street during the summer but because of our our changes in cutting that red tape we were able to ensure that restaurants could get creative in terms of how they serve their patrons keeping staffs staff safe and their customers safe as well I think we need to continue that ensuring listening directly from the businesses what they need and then acting on them of what they're hearing what we're hearing from them as well what has been the financial impact on the city government of the covid situation and what is going to be the impact going forward as a result of that mr sorenson yes and this is this is a tricky question it's been a question I've been asking since the pandemic started the the problem is we don't fully know what the full picture is just yet now we just had our budget that we passed back in October until we know what the final impact is from this pandemic once this is over we'll see how long it takes us to recover then we'll have a better foundational understanding but I mean looking at it from the start we know that hotel revenue from room taxes that's been significantly low we know sales taxes have been kind of all over the board from a county perspective in terms of what we're getting from road funding as well that's been kind of all over the board as well so the pan the pandemic in terms of how it's impacted our budget is not just known yet we know it's going to be difficult we know 2022 is going to be more challenging and how it's going to impact our budget but a big priority of mine is ensuring that we can preserve the services that we provide in the city police and fire library services fixing our roads ensuring that those are preserved so that we can move forward and that we can minimize our impact from the the financial impact that COVID has had on all of us. Mayor Van der Stee. Thank you. Through September of last year we calculated that we'd lost about 1.2 million dollars in revenue due to COVID and this was things like the room tax the the other thing that was kind of interesting is things like water NEMAT closed down for two months and they use about 20% of the water that's produced in the city of Sheboygan's water department so that was about a half a million dollars in losses of water to industries and then another 250,000 dollars of losses as we if we clean that water in our water treatment plant. In addition to that there was a loss of revenue in our park departments with rentals of park facilities and and so all together it came to about 1.2 million dollars through last September. The CARES Act took care of many of the COVID expenses that we've had and it allowed us to buy some IT equipment for people to use laptops when they had to work remotely and things like that. Our transit department did get a lot of help from the COVID bill and it's allowed them to repair a rough cover some of our expenses as far as our local share for transit and and to buy some new equipment to put online in our system. As we go forward in 2022 I think that's where we're really going to start to feel the real impact here and and we just don't know how bad it's going to be yet but it's going to be a very very tight budget this coming year so it's something that is going to take a lot of planning you know right now the federal government is looking at the American Recovery Act and we hope that that is going to give some money directly to cities and you know right now they're talking about some dollars that are huge and yeah hard to imagine that we could even you know get that much money but from them but we are going to need some help and to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in. Thank you. There are various local groups that like to encourage people to grow locally or to buy products locally especially in retail to buy locally and I'm wondering if there's anything that the city should be doing to encourage that to happen and if so what practical steps do you think you could take as mayor to encourage those programs or those interests to be successful? Mayor Van der Steen? Well I think that number one our farmers markets are a fantastic way for that to happen they're well attended by both the farmers as well as the public and it's a great market that that that serves that need to a certain extent but we've also worked with some of our our non-for-profits that are trying to get more of the fresh produce that into the food bank and getting it out to the families that really need to have more fresh food in their diet so I think you know our food bank system is a really good resource for us in this area as well as the local farmers. The other thing that we're working with is our neighborhoods and allowing them to have some community gardens. We have one on Erie Avenue for the Gateway neighborhood and then we have two huge areas on the north side and the south side that the the among of assistance association manages for the among farmers in the area as well that grow things for themselves and things that they bring down to the farmers market. I think fundamentally I think the city needs to do whatever it can with our taxpayer dollars is being ensuring that our tax pay our tax dollars stay local in terms of when we're doing building projects whether we're doing street repairs whatever it is the business incentives in in the TIF district we need to ensure that we're keeping the money here I think that sets a foundation of of keeping the money local as well I think the city can look at what other cities are doing as well in terms of a buy local ordinance ensuring that when we go out for bids and projects that local businesses get a priority first and making sure that they're best fit for community. I'm going to make a plug as well too joining the chamber is a huge benefit. I've been an active member of the chamber from several years now and I'm a member of the deep dive group meet every other Thursday. This is a great opportunity to meet with other local businesses as well network understand that we do have a large variety in different businesses all across this community as well and plugging with those as well but again in terms the city needs to be an advocate in how we're helping local businesses grow and thrive if they need resources and we identify that there's barriers that the local government is putting up for that business to grow and expand then the government's got to get out of the way and help that business be successful as well. A lot of businesses that I've been talking to don't necessarily feel like that's happening to everybody and that the city does pick favorites. I think we need to really address that as well too and when we're working with folks either downtown or on the south pier or anywhere in this great city. Okay well we have time for one more question as long as we cut your time in half so if you can answer in just a moment but what should the city do with the property for Memorial Hospital once that is vacated it's my understanding that that'll be turned over to the city. So Mr. Swanson? I think it needs to be determined but what the neighbors want. I think that's that's a pretty dense neighborhood I know a lot of folks live in that area as well. So it needs to be what the neighbors want I think in terms of single-family homes like I've talked about before would be appropriate townhouses incorporating green space as well. I think that would be a good fit in the neighborhood. Whatever goes in that space needs to fit the neighborhood needs to fit that community. Mayor van der Sien? Right now the city has an agreement with the hospital that they're going to work with the neighbors to come up with plans that will create a single-family neighborhood in that area and they'll be hiring a development company and they have three years after the hospital moves in order to demolish the hospital and then after that that neighborhood will be developed and we've had many meetings with our neighborhood associations in that area that the neighbors are involved they've set up a website they've gotten the input from the neighborhoods so I think we're really in a good place that you know that's the highest producing area in the city of Sheboygan for tax dollars we don't want to do anything to to destroy that we want it to be positive and we want to continue to see the types of homes that are in that neighborhood take over that site where the hospital was located. Okay well I'd like to thank both of you for coming and joining us today thank you for your very diplomatic and polite exchange not turning this to a violent debate like we've seen in so many places in politics these days. I'd also like to thank our sponsor Prevea Health for helping us to fund this and put on the event. If any of you in attendance or anyone attending virtually has any topics that they would like to see us cover in the future I would ask that you share that with us so that we can make sure that those topics are covered for you in the future. And so with that I'd like to give you each an opportunity to give a closing comment. Mr. Sorensen. Awesome well thanks again everybody for coming out on this lovely Friday afternoon thanks for the chamber for putting this on so at the beginning I talked about a tale of two-city situation so the point of my campaign and a lot of folks that I've been talking to is really highlighting that Sheboyne County is experiencing a lot of prosperity and progress however there's still a huge chunk of our population that is being left behind we need a new approach in terms of how we're helping those citizens. In 1862 Abraham Lincoln told Congress that the dogmas of the quiet past cannot adequately help the stormy present right now we're in a stormy present we need new leadership and how we're supporting our community because we must think new we need to bring new ideas to the table. Your businesses have not been successful if you stayed the status quo you guys have innovated you've gotten creative I think the city does need to do this the same. If you're interested in following our campaign check us out online sorensenfirstsheboyne.com and we're on Facebook as well thanks everybody. Thank you for that opportunity you know in the past eight years I think I've really been a change agent for the city of Sheboyne. We've picked up our road construction we've really accentuated our communication with our community we've added the Sheboyne inside of which is a monthly newsletter we put in the next door is a communication tool for our city and our neighborhoods to use. I've really worked hard with our neighborhood associations to grow them from two associations up to 12 now and really help our our police department implement and keep their community policing program in place and this has produced a 31 percent decrease in part one crimes. I think the safety of our community is really in good hands with these projects that we've done and the work of our police department so I hope that you'll support me and this is my my interview for my job for the next four years and I hope you'll decide to hire me for the next four years and keep van der steen in office to keep on building a better Sheboyne. Thank you. Thank you both.